‘It’s not true either. But I’ll allow you to tell yourself that and I’ll just keep the truth to myself.’
Niamh raises her middle finger in my direction, but on spotting her youngest child, eight-year-old Fiadh, walking into the room, she quickly uses the same finger to push her glasses back up her nose.
‘I know you did the bad finger,’ Fiadh says with absoluteconfidence as she walks across the room and sits down beside me. Neither Niamh nor I have the chance to answer before she lifts the baby from my arms like she has been nursing babies all her life and immediately starts chatting and cooing at her. Clara, the traitor, rewards her auntie with a large smile.
‘I think she might love Fiadh most of all,’ I say with a smile.
‘She does. She thinks I’m her best friend,’ Fiadh coos. God, this baby is so lucky to be so loved.
‘Well, while you are getting a cuddle, how about Becks and I go and chat in the kitchen?’ Niamh says. ‘I’ll send Daddy through to sit with you.’
‘I can sit on my own. I’m not a baby,’ Fiadh says, rolling her eyes with disgust. That child is eight going on eighteen and has more confidence than I have ever had in my entire life. I bloody love her for it.
Having followed Niamh through to the kitchen, I barely have my bum on my seat before the questions begin.
‘First of all – do you know your mother and Mrs Bishop now have more than two thousand followers on TikTok?’
My eyes widen. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I do not joke about your mother, Becks. I wouldn’t dare.’
I don’t know whether to feel horrified or proud, so I settle on a combination of both.
‘Second of all, what brings you here on this damp night? I thought you were getting on with all your work like a good girl and hunkering down until both you and Conal are able to wise up and sort out whatever this is between you?’
‘I was. I mean, I did my work. And I messaged the biscuit thief, but then I started spiralling a little. About the club.’
‘The club will get off its feet in time. It’s early days. Patience, young Padawan.’
I nod because she’s right, and also because she is a little scary and it’s easier to agree with her.
‘So now we have that out of the way, are there are any other major crises I can help you get through?’
I give her a look that says ‘I don’t know why you’re asking, you know exactly what is stressing me the fudge out’.
‘Conal,’ she says as she sets a packet of chocolate digestives down in front of me. It’s a statement, not a question. I give her a half smile in response and a little shrug of my shoulders.
‘Something new? Has he been a dick? Did he do something bad? Do I need to kill him? Because I love Conal but I will actually kill him if you need me to?’
I open my mouth to assure her that no, there is nothing new and it is just the same mega crisis that has been taking up my every waking thought for the last forty-eight hours and which I have no idea how to handle.
But just as I go to speak, she looks at me. ‘If he has been a dick, do we have to tell Laura? I don’t want to ruin her return to school – but she will need to know.’
‘Dear God,’ I say. ‘Calm down, it’s nothing new. Nothing that will ruin Laura’s return to college anyway. I don’t think.’
Of course, it’s hard not to be aware of just how awkward all of this is between us. How Conal and I have become a sort of ‘don’t mention the war’ situation in the group chat lest Laura gets upset, or I say the wrong thing, or she says the wrong thing… And Laura must know, then, there’s another conversation going on between Niamh and me that she is not privy to in which all the unsaid things are being said…
And chances are – again – that Laura and Conal have their own conversation ongoing about all of this in which they are saying all their unsaid things. Tis a tangled web we weave!
Niamh freezes, opens her mouth to say something else thenclearly has second thoughts, mimics zipping her mouth shut and sits down opposite me. The wide-eyed expression on her face lets me know that she expects me to start talking – now.
‘I think I might be the dick in this situation,’ I say. ‘I’m still processing it so no, I don’t need your reassurance that I’m not, or your assertion I am. I am spiralling enough and to be honest I came here because I wanted to distract myself from it running around and around in my head constantly.’
I open the chocolate biscuits, take one out and take a bite, hoping the crumbly tastiness will ease my inner turmoil. Although I figure even if it doesn’t, I’ll still have had a chocolate biscuit so it’s a win-win.
‘Okay, so let’s formulate a distraction plan. Without referring to Roy Cropper, fill me in on where we are with the Fabulous Forties thing.’
I finish my bite of biscuit and nod. ‘Well, we have the choir session. It’s all booked and good to go. I’ve had a few confirmations of attendance – and of course you and Laura will be there. If Laura isn’t too busy making a voodoo doll of me for being a dick to her brother.’
